Blogger Bio

Hello, and welcome to my site! My name is Brian Wetzler, a recently retired (2013) Coast Guard officer and aviator, currently residing in West Point, NY, with my lovely wife, Beth, and our kids Carson (6) and Sydney (5). After 24 years of commissioned service, I am now a stay-at-home dad, and I am loving it.
A little bit of history: I am originally from Wilmington, MA (just north of Boston) and attended Wilmington High School. From there I attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, and graduated with a degree in Political Science. I attended Navy flight school in Pensacola, FL, and Corpus Christi, TX, and then cross-commissioned from the Navy to the Coast Guard to fly HH-65 search-and-rescue helicopters. My first tour was a two-year assignment in Puerto Rico, flying primarily search and rescue and counter-narcotics missions throughout the Caribbean. I think I also spent more time deployed to Guantanamo Bay than I spent at home. From Puerto Rico, I was detailed to New Orleans, where I flew search and rescue for seven years. I met and married Beth there, while she was finishing her doctoral work at Tulane. From NOLA, we were sent to Savannah, GA, where I flew four more years of search and rescue, and finished a Masters degree in counseling psychology. After that, the staff man came for me, and we were detailed to Aviation Forces in Headquarters, Washington, D.C. While there, I completed a second Masters degree, in National Defense and Strategic Studies, at the Naval War College. I also jumped the rails out of aviation, and joined the forces of the Defense Intelligence Agency. From D.C., Beth and I were detailed to Bogota, Colombia for three years, where I served as a military attache in the Defense Attache Office of the U.S. Embassy. From there, I was sent back to Fort McNair, in Washington D.C., for a year of study at the Colegio Interamericana de Defensa (Interamerican Defense College). After graduation, I reported to the Defense Information School, at Fort Meade, MD, to prepare myself to take over as the Chief of Media Relations for the U.S. Coast Guard. It was from that glorious job that I retired in 2013, and moved from Washington to Michigan. Shortly after our arrival there, my wife received an offer to become a professor at West Point. Ten or 15 seconds later, she accepted, and here we are. Living behind Michie Stadium, and loving life.

Encouraging Free Range parenting, and helping speak common-sense to the myths and fears that are crippling American childhood.